


All The Best Surprises

by DarknessAroundUs



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017), Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Future Fic, I think friendship fic should be a fanfic thing, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-06 22:12:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19071706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarknessAroundUs/pseuds/DarknessAroundUs
Summary: Featuring Veronica Mars, a college admissions scandal, and an unexpected friendship.A future fic.





	All The Best Surprises

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jandjsalmon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jandjsalmon/gifts).



> This is gifted the wonderful, incomparable, Jandy! I intended to dedicate The Unexpected Life and Three Musketeers to Jandy, and chickened out both times. Not this time!
> 
> A huge debt of gratitude (Huge!), is owed to KittiLee for being an amazing beta. She encouraged me to keep writing it, and then thrilled me by loving the heck out of this. On top of all that, it is a lot better because of her edits. She also made a wonderful graphic you can see on my tumblr (same name!)
> 
> This is canon compliant up to the end of season three for both VM and Riverdale (I’m ignoring the last two minutes), and then it diverges. 
> 
> Obviously i’ve ignored the fact that if Veronica was real she would be at least 15 years older than Betty and jughead, for the sake of this story they are all roughly the same age. 
> 
> Veronica Lodge isn’t in this story because that would be confusing! I left Archie out too because he’s probably at community college somewhere. 
> 
> If for some reasons you are reading this and you haven't seen Veronica Mars, you should go watch Veronica Mars because it is fantastic, but if you want to read this first, picture her as a very short feisty blond, with a dog named Backup and perhaps the best father in the fictional universe - Keith. Also one of her closest friends, Mac, is a computer hacker.

Veronica Mars is in the library between classes. She’s trying to focus on her coursework, but it frankly feels beneath her. She’s learning the technical terms for things she knew how to spot in practice years ago. Still, she’s going to need to know these terms if she’s going to pass all her classes. 

At Hearst College she could get straight A’s using her experience and her wiles without putting in too much effort. Now that she had been at Stanford for a month, she’s starting to suspect that that isn’t the case here. 

Street smarts don’t earn A’s. Instead, what they cared about were book smarts, saying the right thing, rather than doing it. 

It didn’t help that Veronica didn’t have a team here. Wallace and Mac were a skype call away, busy with the usual routine and life at Hearst. They missed her, but they didn’t have as much time to miss her, as she did to miss them. 

She hasn’t heard from Logan in over six months. He left Hearst and seemingly all of California behind. Veronica could probably find out where he is with a couple of keystrokes, but she’s trying to resist temptation in more ways than one. 

Veronica refocuses on the book in-front of her. She forces herself to turn the page, when suddenly she hears two people talking in hushed voices about a stolen laptop. She can’t see them. She is in the open central part of the library, with lots of long large tables, and whoever is talking is in the stacks, near her. 

“My whole life is on that thing,” a female voice says. Veronica can hear the panic in her voice without seeing the expression on her face.

Then a male voice says, “It’s ok. I heard about this girl on campus that is great at solving crimes. I bet she can get your laptop back.”

Veronica’s a little surprised, she didn’t think her reputation had followed her. Since starting Stanford she’s only had the opportunity to solve one crime, and it wasn’t a particularly impressive one. Figuring out that the janitor was the one siphoning off the cleaning supplies hardly even counted as a case. 

“What’s her name?” the girl asks.

The male voice replies, “Betty Cooper.” 

Veronica’s shocked. She gets up, stuffs her laptop and books into her satchel and heads towards the stacks. By the time she gets there, the couple that was talking earlier is gone. 

Veronica is so used to being the girl with the reputation for crime solving, (and other less pleasant things), that she’s not sure what do with this information at first. She is curious to find out more about Betty Cooper. 

She tries to look her up on social media, but Betty Cooper is nowhere to be found. When Veronica mentions this to Mac over video chat, Mac laughs and says, “Maybe she has a senior citizen name because she is in fact, a senior citizen.”

Veronica shakes her head and quips, “Then she’d definitely be on Facebook.” Mac rolls her eyes. 

Mac does find a mention of a Betty Cooper in The New York Times, but Veronica’s pretty sure that the one going to Stanford isn’t the daughter of a serial killer. Still she’s not ruling that out entirely.

Betty isn’t in any of Veronica’s classes either. Stanford’s psychology department is small, even if Betty was in another year, she probably would have seen her by now. 

Veronica decides that the best way to meet Betty is probably to start her own investigation service again. There is a lot less crime at Stanford than at Hearst, but crime does still exist here. Veronica could use the e cash and outside of homework she has a lot of free time on her hands. She hasn’t made friends very easily in the last five years, and opting to go without a roommate has left her with loose ends.

So Veronica puts up a few posters in the hallways of her dorm. In October, three clients come to her. None of them mention Betty Cooper, but all of them seem happy with Veronica’s services, or happy-ish (no one actually wants their long-distance boyfriend to be cheating on them).

It feels good to be putting her PI license to good use and solving mysteries again. Veronica’s fourth case is actually challenging. Her client, Luke, is a graduate student who is pretty confident that his thesis advisor is sleeping with his rival and favoring her academically. He offers to pay Veronica two thousand dollars to investigate, with an additional three thousand dollar bonus if she is able to get photographic evidence.

Initially Veronica has her doubts since jealousy is clearly playing a role in Luke’s suspicions. Still one night when she’s outside of Prof. Leon’s office, she hears distinct noises coming from behind closed doors, and minutes later Luke’s rival, Maggie exits, her hair rumpled. 

Veronica knows that she has to catch them in the act and that’s always trickier than it sounds. At first she tries hanging around the office, but Prof. Leon seems to notice her, and Maggie stops visiting him there.

That means she has to switch tactics. Veronica finds out that Maggie works in the Dining Commons as one of the line cooks. Knowing that makes Veronica like her more, not less. She knows Luke has lots of money to throw at her, and clearly Maggie is working her way through school. 

But a case is a case no matter where Veronica’s sympathy lies. So she decides to break into Maggie’s locker.

The Dining Commons has surprisingly long hours, so she finds herself breaking in at 4 AM. It’s easy to get through the front door, but Maggie has splurged for a good quality combination lock on her handily labeled locker, and Veronica is struggling with it when she hears someone clear their throat loudly behind her. 

She turns to see a tall man standing behind her, with wild black hair and striking blue eyes. Not Veronica’s type, but still she notices he’s handsome. 

He’s got a serious expression on his face, but he’s not alarmed or particularly shocked to see her there. 

Veronica thinks her best bet is to fake innocence. “I just got a job here, and someone else put a lock on my locker and now I can’t get into it.”

The man doesn’t smile, but his eyes light up as if he thinks he’s about to have fun. “That’s just not true. I work here. I know they’re not hiring, and every locker is carefully labeled.”

“Oh.” Veronica says. When in doubt, she can always flirt her way out of this. She changes her body’s posture immediately. “So actually this is part of my sorority initiation and I would very much like to be able to pledge Delta Delta Delta!” She adds a little fist-pump and a wink.

“I have a partner,” the man says. He’s smiling now. 

It’s funny, Veronica’s usually pretty good at reading people, and this man seemed straight to her, but still he’s caught her doing something she shouldn’t have been and he doesn’t really seem to care. It’s a surprisingly good sign.

“Ok. I’m Veronica.” 

“And I’m Jughead.”

“Really?” She’s a little skeptical. She’s not using a fake name, neither should he.

“I had it changed legally last year.”

“To Jughead?” 

“My birth name was worse.” He shrugs. “I know who you are. I just don’t know what Maggie did wrong.”

Veronica feels a flush of pride. He knows who she is. That’s a good sign, that her hard work has started to pay off. “It’s not what she did wrong, it’s who I think she’s doing.”

“Oh?” Jughead says, then he shrugs. “I have no skin in that game.”

He easily enters the code into the combination lock and it swings open.

“My hero.” Veronica says sarcastically, pressing one hand against her chest. 

Jughead watches her sort through the locker. He doesn’t even try and check her out when she bends over to search the bottom. She does wonder what his deal is. Why he’s letting her do this if he’s not attracted to her. 

It takes a while for Veronica to find the love letters from Prof. Leon to Maggie, but she does find them, and even better, folded into the last one is a photo of the two of them kissing. It’s not as good as a photo of them doing something else, but it will probably be enough for the Dean and earn herself the three thousand dollar bonus.

Veronica wonders how she can take the evidence without Jughead spotting her. She hesitates for a second and in that second Jughead says, “You can have it.” 

“Why are you doing this?” Veronica asks.

“This is your job, right?” Jughead says. Veronica nods. “Then who am I to interfere.”

It’s an odd argument, but he’s an odd guy, so Veronica leaves it at that. She does however leave him her number and asks him to phone her with any tips before she goes. 

He smirks and says, “Like I told you, I have a partner.”

“It’s not like that!” Veronica says with a wink as she leaves.

Prof. Lean is let go quietly, the school seems eager to keep the whole situation on the down low. Luke actually pays Veronica her bonus in full. Veronica is surprised to see him making out on with Maggie on the lawn, three weeks later.

Meanwhile Veronica is between cases, but she begins to hear rumors about the Dean for granting admission to students based on money and family ties, not on merit. Nothing concrete has come out, but all the graduate students are talking about it, and some of the undergrads too. 

She wants to investigate, and she starts to, but then a pickpocket starts targeting The Dining Commons, and she has three clients who need her help. It’s a good thing she already has an in at that location. 

Because she knows Jughead works mornings, she goes in extra early. The Dining Commons is on the opposite side of campus from her dorm, so she hasn’t run into him by accident since the Maggie case.

She sees Jughead as soon as she enters the dining hall. There’s a bored expression on his face and a hairnet on his head, and he looks like he’s over everything.

When he ladles eggs onto her plate, he raises a questioning eyebrow. “Do you get a break soon?” she asks. Although outside of the one student directly behind her, the rooms pretty empty.

“What is this about?” Jughead asks.

“The pickpocket situation.” 

He looks relieved. “I’ll meet you in five.”

Sure enough before Veronica’s done with her toast he’s sits down opposite her. His hairnet is gone and so is the look of boredom. 

“So I’ve narrowed it down to three people,” Jughead says with a shrug. “But I haven't made any progress in the last week because it’s hard for me to get to the other side of the counter when it’s busy. They never strike when it’s quiet like this.”

Veronica thinks it is a little strange that he’s so interested in this, but it probably has something to do with the fact that he’s a smart guy stuck in a menial job with a bunch of rich kids. She gets a bit of a Weevil vibe off him, though she’s not sure why, exactly. It’s not like he has neck tattoos, and he seems more educated than Weevil (Veronica can’t imagine him needing help with algebra). But there’s something about him, that’s very motorcycles and minor violence. 

“Why do you care about this? Are you writing a true crime novel or something?” Veronica quips.

Jughead looks both confused and surprised. “I thought you knew who I was?” he mumbles, and Veronica wonders what he means. Instead of explaining he switches subjects and says, “Yes, exactly. I want to be the next Truman Capote“ 

Veronica makes a joke about Ann Rule being more contemporary, although also dead, while Jughead writes down the name of the three students he suspects. 

Veronica ends up seeing him every day that week as she narrows the list he gave her down from three students to one, Maria McClair. 

While she’s sleuthing Jughead always gives her extra of whatever she orders from him, and when he has free time they trade quips, although his seem more geared towards old movies than pop culture. Veronica has to admit that he’s the closest person she has to a friend at Stanford. 

On the fifth day, Veronica manages to snap photos of Maria removing a wallet from a fellow students purse. Thanks to that evidence, Maria’s expelled by the end of the day. 

She texts Jughead a thank you note along with a bad pun. The next time she sees him is right after Christmas break. Veronica’s meeting with a new client in the cafeteria and he’s on duty. He looks particularly sleep deprived but smiles when he sees her.

“Did you go home for the holidays?” Veronica asks. 

“I never go home.” Jughead says, as if she should already know that. 

It’s funny because Veronica has grown to like him, although she’s not sure she’ll ever really understand him. He might be as weird as his name. 

The new client, Rosa, offers to pay Veronica because she believes that her boyfriend was denied admissions into Stanford because he lacked financial stability. Veronica thinks the case is weak and probably impossible to prove in terms of the boyfriend. She takes it anyway, because she thinks it might be true and provable on a broader scale. Particularly with all the rumors of parents buying their children’s way in, going around.

It is because of Rosa that she finds herself climbing a ladder and jimmying open the upstairs window at the Dean’s house.

She starts to crawl through the window when she sees movement in the dark, a flash of blond. Veronica freezes. She knows the Dean is supposed to be out at a campus event for at least another hour. Besides the Dean has gray hair.

Instead of running or screaming, the figure in the shadows walks towards Veronica then sighs,

“Oh, it’s you!” 

Veronica can see the figure properly now. She’s a woman, about Veronica’s age. She’s taller, with blond hair and sharp green eyes. Veronica can’t make out more than that in the dark. This woman seems to know who she is, but Veronica doesn’t recognize her at all. 

And then it clicks. She doesn’t know this woman, but she does know of her, “You’re Betty Cooper.”

Betty nods and helps Veronica through the rest of the window before saying, “You’re Veronica Mars.” 

“I am. I guess we are here for the same reason.” Veronica had imagined Betty differently. Like an edgier version of herself, not a softer looking one. Betty was wearing the kind of outfit Veronica associated with J. Crew. 

Betty nods. “I’m not very good at breaking into safes. Any chance you are?”

Veronica shrugs. Mac has helped her figure out an algorithm that can crack most home safes. 

Betty leads Veronica to the safe and Veronica enters the information exactly as Mac has given it to her. The safe opens with a satisfying click. 

Inside there are more files than Veronica knows what do with. She pulls them out of the safe and hands them to Betty. That’s when they hear the door open downstairs. The Dean and his wife are shouting at each other. Veronica can’t make all the words out but it’s something about a silent alarm, and the wife insisting they check on it, while the dean is assuming that it was falsely triggered again. 

She exchanges a look with Betty, and they both stuff the files they have into their bags. They make their way to the window together. Veronica goes first. Once she’s safety on the ground she can hear sirens in the distance. 

Veronica wants to run. She doesn’t know Betty, doesn’t really owe her anything. Still they’re kindred spirits. Veronica has broken into a lot of places in her life and she can count on one hand the number of people she met while breaking into those places. She and Betty are outliers.

Betty scrambles down the ladder quickly, just as the drench doors swing open and the dean runs out of them. Veronica knows he can’t see them in the shadowy lawn, but still panic floods through her.

Veronica and Betty scramble down the walkway. Veronica keeps wishing she had brought Backup and he wasn’t stuck hundreds of miles away with Keith. She must have said some of her thoughts out loud because Betty shouts, “Don’t worry. I have backup. Follow me.”

Betty runs across the street, then through a neighbor’s yard. Veronica can hear the sirens growing louder as she follows. 

Betty stops in an alleyway next to an old beat up sedan. Betty throws the back door open. Veronica doesn’t even glance at the driver's seat as she ducks into the back seat next to Betty who is screaming “Drive!” 

The car starts with a lurch and Veronica fumbles with her seat belt. It clicks into place just as they turn the corner. 

Veronica glances back and there’s no sign of the Dean or the police, so that’s good. Then she glances at the front seat. She sees Jughead grinning through the rearview mirror.

“Jughead fucking Jones,” Veronica says. She knew he was involved in something that was not entirely on the up and up. She didn’t think it was this (whatever this is), ”What are you doing here?”

“I see you finally met my partner.” 

Only then do the pieces click in place, and Veronica kicks herself for jumping to the wrong conclusion about his sexuality earlier. Unless he only means they work together. Just to clarify she says, “I thought you meant life partner.” 

“Betty’s my partner in investigations and life.”

Betty rolls her eyes. “He means I’m his girlfriend. Sorry, he’s a little extra sometimes.”

Jughead laughs, “What do you mean sometimes?” 

Veronica is relieved to discover that she doesn’t hear sirens anymore. Jughead turns again and she realizes Jughead’s driving them away from campus, not towards it. 

“Where are you taking us?” Veronica asks.

“You didn’t think the help could afford to live on campus did you?” Jughead says with an eye roll.

“You remind me of my friend Weevil.” 

“What was he like?” Betty asks curiously.

“A tattooed biker, born on the wrong side of the tracks, leader of a gang, a real tough guy, but completely soft for his girlfriend and little kids.”

Betty laughs so loud Veronica can’t tell exactly what sound Jughead makes with his throat. 

“Sounds about right,” Jughead says with a groan from the front seat. 

“What part?” Veronica asks. A little curious. 

“Maybe every one.” Betty says with a laugh.

“You lead a gang?” Veronica asks skeptically. 

Jughead nods, “A long time ago.”

“Three years,” Betty specifies. 

Veronica looks at Betty. She can’t imagine where she fits into all this, with the pastels, and the soft smile. Sure, she had met Betty while breaking into a house, but there was something about her that seemed overwhelmingly polite. She must have met Jughead at Stanford. 

“And how long have you two known each other?” Veronica asks. 

“Did we meet when we were two?” Jughead asks. Betty shakes her head. “Three then?” Betty nods and Jughead says “Seventeen years. We’ve only dated for five though.”

“And how did you figure into the gang?” Veronica asks, looking curiously at Betty. 

“She was the queen,” Jughead drawls.

Betty rolls her eyes. “We were practically kids.”

“And the gang was how you got into investigating?” Veronica asks skeptically.

Jughead shakes his head, “No, that was the school newspaper.”

Veronica laughs. Only after does she wonder how they’ve heard about her, so she asks. 

“My cousin Cheryl goes to Hearst,” Betty says with a shrug. “She knew all about you.” 

Veronica has heard of Cheryl, some sort of trust fund kid with a sharper tongue than most. She’d never met her though.

The rest of the ride passes in easy jokes and quips. Veronica’s used to being surrounded by people who have no interest in the ways she makes her living and passes her time, and it feels surprisingly great to be surrounded by people who are obsessed with the same things she is.

She finds out that Betty got into Stanford on a scholarship. Her degree is in English literature, and that is why they have never met. 

Jughead is actually trying to write a crime novel and doesn’t care much about formal education, at least not enough to go into debt for it. 

Jughead parks in front of a small apartment building that doesn’t look entirely unlike the one Veronica spent her last years of high school in. 

The apartment is small but cozy. It’s painted a soothing blue, there is a sofa and three bookshelves. Instead of a TV, there is a projector set up. Frozen on the white cloth is the final shot from Chinatown, the last one you see before the credits role. 

Jughead turns it off without comment and Betty offers soda but no one’s interested. Jughead returns with two bags of chips, one he places between Veronica and Betty and the other he opens and starts to consume at an alarming rate. 

Betty and Veronica empty out the contents of their bags on the low Ikea coffee table. All three of them root through files. It doesn’t take them long to figure out that all the files belong to high school students from wealthy (and often famous) families that have applied to Stanford. There are three 09er’s, none that Veronica knows very well, but one that she recognizes from high school. All of their GPA’s range from not terrible, to actually abysmal. Betty starts to sort them into piles according to GPA, but none of them say much. 

It doesn’t look good for the Dean, but unfortunately none of it’s incriminating. There is nothing written on the files that indicates these individuals are actually accepted. It’s just the simple fact that the dean had all of their files in his safe. Why would he do that if he wasn’t considering accepting them? 

Besides the only thing these students have in common with each other was fair to awful grades, and a huge potential inheritance. Everything else from geographic location to personal essay to extracurriculars varied. 

The thing that really intimidates Veronica is the sheer number of files. There are more than fifty. It’s one thing to accept a student or two because of their finances, it’s another thing to accept one fifth of the incoming class that way.

Jughead groans. “This wasn’t the break in the case we were hoping for.”

“Me neither,” Veronica says with a head shake. 

“At least we have other leads,” Betty says, looking entirely too perky for the hour and the context. Jughead rolls his eyes.

It’s funny that Veronica never questions Betty’s assumption, casual though it may be, that they are all now working together. Usually she pushes against the idea of teamwork. Even when Mac and Wallace helped her, she thought of herself as in charge, and she was the one who came up with the ideas, the one who really understood how crime worked.

She finds herself slipping into a working relationship with them easily. They have a group chat going all the time, and a shared Google doc. They start meeting once a week at Betty and Jughead’s apartment, and soon switch to twice a week. 

They make progress on the case. First, they figure out who on the board knows about the situation and who doesn’t, and then they find a professor who might be open to talking on the record. 

The time they spend together is not all investigative work. Veronica discovers that Betty’s a great cook and happily takes advantage of that (one can only survive on cafeteria food for so long). They have a similar taste in movies, so sometimes they end up watching one.

Usually when spending time with a couple Veronica’s always felt like the third wheel, a little off balance. It’s not like that with Betty and Jughead. They never leave her outand she appreciates different things about both of them. Jughead has her sense of humor, her lower class grit, and Betty has the kindness she’s always looked for in friendships, but often found lacking. Betty reminds her of Meg, before that all went south. 

Before she knows it, Veronica is spending three evenings a week at Betty and Jughead’s. Sometimes she even sleeps over on the sofa. Only then does she start to realize how it’s strange that she doesn’t interact with them on campus. 

She never runs into Betty for some reason. Jughead still talks with her at his work sometimes, but that’s about it. 

Usually Veronica drives herself over to their place, but someone in her dorm offers her fifty dollars to borrow her car for two days, and so instead she hitches a ride with Jughead. 

In his truck she asks him why they never do anything on campus together. Jughead laughs, “Have you ever seen Betty and I interact on campus?” Veronica shakes her head. “It’s because we never do. People know Betty investigates things. You’d heard of her before you met her, but me, I’m just an invisible employee. It’s much easier for us to get work done this way.”

Veronica must admit he has a point. It’s part of what makes them such a good investigative duo turned trio. Jughead blends into the woodwork on campus in a way they do not. 

“So you’re in a secret relationship?” 

Jughead laughs. “Hell no. We went to two proms together in high school and they both were fucking terrible. Everyone in our hometown knows about us. It’s just here that we keep it on the down-low for the time being.”

Veronica gets it. The less people know about you the easier it is to blend in. 

In March, Rosa stops paying Veronica, but that doesn’t even matter in the whole scheme of things because nothing else in the investigation is moving forward either. That is until Betty hears about a black tie party for potential students right before spring break.

That’s how Veronica finds herself back at the Dean’s house wearing a short skirt and a cleavage revealing blouse. Jughead was there as well, posing as a rich GPA challenged teen, the opposite of who he once had been. Still he looks the part. 

Jughead can still pass as a teenager, even though Veronica wasn’t sure the same could be said for her. She was posed conveniently as a caterer, a tray of weird mini sandwiches in her hand. 

“Can I have one?” a male voice asks, and Veronica turns around. A tall teenager with an untucked shirt is staring at her inquisitively.

“Of course,” Veronica says, extending the tray to him. 

“Do you already go here?” The teen asks.

“Yes.” Veronica says, a polite smile plastered on her face.

“Can I ask you some questions? I’m really trying to make up my mind between here, Harvard, and Columbia.” 

Veronica laughs, it’s a slight variation on her floozy laugh, but she knows most men find it charming. She also knows it implies things about herself that have probably never been true. “You must have much better grades than I did.”

“No. I really don’t. I probably just have more money,” the teen says and then asks about food and the social scene on campus. After obtaining her fake phone number he moves on to another caterer for cheese and crackers.

“Did you get that?” Veronica says over the earpiece.

“Yes.” Betty replies. “I think this is a more than one school scandal. Jughead are you thinking what I’m thinking?” 

Veronica isn’t able to hear Jughead’s reply because she’s interrupted by the dean himself who scolds her for having too empty a serving plate. She shuffles off into the kitchen and then leaves the party entirely. She can’t imagine learning anything more. 

Jughead joins her and Betty in the surveillance vehicle (really just Betty’s beat up sedan) a half hour later. Jughead has learned nothing. 

“What were you thinking earlier?” Veronica asks. By this time Betty’s driving, Jughead’s in the seat next to Betty, and Veronica is in the backseat.

Betty starts to say “Oh, I.” and then Jughead clears his throat and Betty corrects “we, have an FBI connection. I think we need their help, if this issue is indeed bigger than Stanford.”

Veronica’s a little surprised. Back in Neptune her law enforcement connections were mostly negative, and while her one encounter with the FBI ended on a surprisingly positive note, she knows that if she told them about this they would care less. “And you know they’ll take us seriously?”

“We’ve worked with them before. We’ve always come through for them.” 

“Besides our brother’s an agent,” Jughead says with a shrug. Betty sends him a scowl. Veronica feels a little confused.

“Jug, that will never not be awkward,” Betty says with a sigh. “What Jughead meant to say is that our half-brother is an agent.” Then with the practiced patience of someone who has had to cover this ground a lot she says, “We are in no way related to each other and we had no idea our parents had ever hooked up, never mind procreated, when we started dating. Chic entered ours lives when we were seventeen”

Veronica realizes that Betty’s expecting her to be judgmental. But after the whole Duncan might have actually been her half-brother fiasco, she was hardly in such a position.

“I had to tell her. When Chic showed up, she would have found out anyways,” Jughead says.

“I do not care,” Veronica says. “Although I do care that your brother is named Chic. Is he a model on the side?” 

Betty laughs and Jughead supplies “Both our parents were pretty terrible at naming.”

“Chic is a better name than Jughead.” Veronica teases, although it is in fact true.

Veronica meets Chic for the first time when they go to pick him up from the airport. When Chic sees his half siblings, he’s all hugs and back slaps and he’s clearly so proud of them. In fact, he’s so clearly happy to spend time with them that it almost makes Veronica wish that she wasn’t an only child. 

Chic is very all American in the way Betty is. He doesn’t seem to care that his half siblings break the law with the casualness of breathing, although Veronica can’t imagine him doing it. 

Veronica had felt like the weight of the case was too much, but she still was reluctant to let the FBI takes over. It’s clear that isn’t Chic’s plan at all. Betty and Jughead don’t seem surprised. They told her they worked with him before, but she only takes it seriously now. She definitely doesn’t expect to be put on the payroll – though she is. The FBI pays freelancers well, and it takes all of her secret keeping abilities to keep this from her dad instead of boasting about it. 

Veronica finds herself working for the Dean that same week. She’s his new student aide thanks to the FBI. During a board of directors meeting where she’s taking notes, she notices two of the board members passing notes like school children. 

After it’s over, she lingers, pretending to try and find something in her bag. She overhears them talking about a secondary meeting at the dean’s house. Chic is finally able to get the authorization to bug it, and just in time. 

The evidence they need is all there. It only takes Chic a couple hours interrogating the right board member for the whole house of cards to come tumbling down. The Dean is in jail five hours later and three hours after that, he’s officially out of a job. 

The next night, Betty and Jughead host a party of sorts, although only Chic and Veronica are invited. There’s lots of good Italian food and even a small amount of wine (everyone involved has alcoholic parents to some degree or another - except Betty).

Chic calls Veronica a good egg (which feels terribly dated, but she still takes it as a compliment) and gives her a business card before leaving. He’s off to try and take down the Dean of Harvard.

When Veronica wakes up the next morning on Betty and Jughead’s lumpy sofa, staring at their blue wall, she wonders if this is the end of their relationship, after all it was a working one, and now finals are around the corner and summer just after that. It turns out not to be the case. 

They spend a lot of time together before she leaves town, and they end up video chatting most weeknights (Mac and Wallace even get a little jealous). Halfway through the summer Betty and Jughead even visit for a week. 

Betty fixes Keith’s car and Jughead helps with a sting operation, and Keith teases her about having much better taste in friends than boyfriends. Betty and Jughead totally adore Keith, taking advantage of any opportunity to spend time with him. 

Veronica introduces Weevil and Jughead, assuming they will either have a fight or become quick friends. Neither happens. They just stare at each other and then Weevil and Betty have a very long conversation about cars. 

It’s only when Veronica arrives back at Stanford in the fall that she really realizes how permanently they’ve become embedded in her life. The very first night back she’s over for dinner at their place when Jughead hands Veronica an envelope.

“What is it?” she asks, her mouth still half full of cookie. 

“Open it,” Betty says with a wink. Veronica does. Inside there is a bunch of business cards with a very familiar log on them, followed by the header Mars Investigations: Stanford. Veronica feels like crying.

“We asked your dad for permission,” Betty says.

“Of course you did.” Veronica says, tearing up a little.

**Author's Note:**

> I had so many additional head canons for this, including one where Betty and Jughead attempt to set up Veronica M. with Archie, it fails completely. Eventually Veronica sets up Archie with Mac and that is a complete success, at least from a hookup perspective. 
> 
> I kept trying and failing to pair Veronica up with anyone from the Riverdale universe, and even if your end game is Logan/Veronica, it didn't make sense to me at this point, just because of how season three ended.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Comments make my day, week, month, year!


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